Meatless March

No matter how completely I have internalized a mostly vegetarian diet over the past five years, I still feel hopeful when I come across an article with a first line like this one: "Cows are not the problem." My saliva glands swung into action as I read about livestock farming practices that support carbon sequestration.  "It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. At tea time, everybody agrees." Regenerative agriculture practices are great -- really great, seriously! -- but the key word above is carbon . None of the solutions described in that article addressed the problem of cows being a major source of methane , which dissipates faster than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but traps more heat around the Earth, pound for pound . When it comes to methane, cows really ARE a problem. Then I turned to an article whose headline stated that "Innovative solutions will be necessary to reduce methane emissions".  And again, this article has useful and ho...

Change is hard. When you grow up enjoying burgers and bacon and cheese (and bacon cheeseburgers), like I did, you might understandably resist cutting back on those things when confronted with evidence that they are contributing to the climate crisis. I speak from personal experience about this resistance, which I maintained for years. My husband proposed to me over a milkshake in 2010. And so I say to the Wall Street Journal editorial board member who authored an opinion piece called " First They Came for the Cars, Then the Cows ," take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. And you can be part of the solution. The author was peeved because policymakers in various countries are trying out policy options to discourage animal agriculture, which she acknowledged is contributing to climate change: "Livestock production accounts for about 11% to 17% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and about 32% of the world’s methane, which is 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide. Pound...